Happy New YOU

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”  

– 2 Corinthians 5:17

I have found it interesting to start this blog. Many of you have not seen this spiritual side of me, well…ever. Some of you in this past year alone have seen me act as anything BUT a man of faith.

I started my journey over ten years ago, when my father died. If ever there was a Peter who ran the other way when the God “thing” came full circle, or a doubting Thomas who needed to poke and prod the wounds of Christ, it was me…it took seven years of poking and prodding to finally take the plunge and be baptized three years ago. Since then I’ve come to realize that being a Christian ain’t no walk in the park. I don’t wear Birkenstocks and I haven’t let my hair grow long and I now know that the Christians running around trying to condemn people to hell are the weakest Christians of all. Judge not, lest you be judged, and all that.  I’d rather believe in people than judge them.

But that doesn’t mean I get to lead two lives. Lord knows I’ve tried, and this blog in many ways is my confession of that. It doesn’t work. As a man I very much respect in my men’s group said of a story I confessed, “Tony…how many people in this church are struggling with their faith? Which of them looks up to you without you even realizing it? What if one of them was there and saw the way you acted? What would they think?”  I didn’t know how to answer him then but I do now: they would have thought “hypocrite”, plain and simple. But God forgives and reminds me with love that I have work to do on myself and in this world and I intend to get to it, one day and one prayer at a time.

The journey of faith is not easy but it’s also not as hard as some people make it out to be. God is right there, next to you, waiting for you to reach that point in your life where you simply don’t want to go it alone anymore or when you realize, at long last, that you never really were alone to begin with. It's at this special moment in our lives that we begin to take off our old selves, and put on the new.

So as we head into the New Year I just wanted to say “Happy New YOU!!!”

God Bless.

Teams

"Two are better than one,
   because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down,
   one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
   and has no one to help them up."
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

I rejoined my men's group recently after a somewhat long hiatus. Some things in life are painfully obvious and yet that does not stop us from missing them. I have been wandering around the desert for months now, thirsty for a drink, determined to find it and give it to myself. Parched and weak I was floundering, and after spending time with my group I was suddenly renewed and refreshed. Is it any surprise that it was they who had to give me that drink, that sip of togetherness, that refreshment that is the Holy Spirit represented in the lives, tales and experiences of fellow believers stumbling through life?

For too many months now I have been spending my time on the wrong team. A one man team called "Me". Through knowledge and study, reflection, self-absorption and introspection I was intent on finding a God that coaches the other team; the team of "We".  In Me I will mostly find what Paul talks about in Romans 7:21-25

"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! "

When I get out of myself, when I see the intricacies of life and faith through the eyes of others, I give God a chance to speak to me...to coach me...outside the confines of my own troubled mind.  How does he coach me? By reminding me that it isn't about me. By encouraging me to join the team of WE. Even Jesus needed friends. He had twelve of them as a matter of fact.  If I am less than a speck as compared to him, where do I find the gall to think I am good enough to go it alone?  On the team of We my bible study becomes the playbook, my brothers in the group my teammates, and our prayers the team fight song.

Many of you reading this blog don't go to church that often. Many of you don't belong to a small group, or spend time on a regular basis studying the Bible. I cannot possibly encourage you enough to do so. Please. Do it. Join the team of We and see God work his blessings in your life. Because if two are better than one, how much more so are four, or six, or eight? It's a we thing.

A Cause With No Pause

“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.” Acts 20:24

In running the race we will trip and we will stumble. Oftentimes, despite our best efforts, we will fall; face first with dirt in our teeth.

In ancient times, when the Olympics were the grand event (instead of the Super Bowl), the race was everything. The crowds would gather, the runners would take their place and a symphony of human effort would follow; muscles and sweat, determination and grit, man against man in search of the victor’s wreath and the accolades of the crowd.  The idea was to win. The idea was to conquer. Hence on such a day in those times one could see on a small scale the mentality of mankind as it played out on a larger scale, in wars between nations, when conquering and being a conqueror was everything.

The message of the Christian faith as born in Christ was to transcend this mentality. Paul put it best:
“… in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

The idea seems simple but it’s not. For one to be more than a conqueror you must first lose interest in being one.  In Western culture this notion, for some of us, can be hard to accept. We have been raised to believe that the race always goes to the swift, that finishing anything less than first place is failure and that getting ahead at any cost is worth the price, even if it is at the expense of someone else. In the Old Testament King Solomon addressed the futility of this approach to life when he warned "...the race does not always go to the swift, or the battle to the strong...". The notion of a life spent trying to conquer and overcome leads only to defeat because someone has to lose and, at some point, that someone is going to be you.

Instead of conquering one another we are called to conquer ourselves or, better yet, our sinful natures. How many battles and World Wars have been fought because men could not handle the battles within their own souls? Turning to the battle within is much harder than dropping bombs or pointing a gun. But to find God, to find true peace, we must engage ourselves daily and overcome, enslave and defeat our own weaknesses, all while trying to engage daily life at the same time.

It’s not easy and no one said it would be.  We must run the race, even when we are weak and tired, burdened or broken, not to win but to be glorious to God in the effort.

And when we fall? The message of faith is to get up. Every…single…time.

Because we are all part of a cause. A cause with no pause.

Jesus, Linus and You

 
 "And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you this day is born in the City of Bethlehem, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men'". That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."  - Linus

It is the Friday before Christmas Eve and I am - for some odd reason - thinking of births. There's the birth of my son, eleven weeks early, which I knew was coming and waited for with anticipation.  There's the  birth of my daughter, which I had no idea had even happened until the adoption agency called my wife to tell us to come pick her up (literally) the next day.  Some births are planned, some are a surprise.

Then there is the birth of Christ, planned by God, a surprise to man, and a birth which keeps happening...each and every day...in the hearts and minds of new believers as they come to Christ, and the rest of us who are born again every time we rediscvoer something new about Him, or about ourselves through him.  It is a blessing beyond measure, a blessing that transcends a dirty manger thousands of years ago and spreads open its arms to anyone willing to find, in a tiny little baby, one tiny little thing: hope.  A hope that leads to faith, a faith that leads to life, life as it was meant to be lived (as that little baby would grow up to tell us) a life that is lived for others.

So swaddle yourself in the love of Christ these next few days, and remember to swaddle others in that love as well. For Jesus wasn't only born to Mary and Joseph. He was born to you. His earliest cries can still be heard in every Christmas bell that rings. The light of his life is still shining in every light on every house. And that awe-inspiring hope that pulled a star across the sky and wise men through the desert? It burns right there in your own heart.

God Bless and Merry Christmas!